Happiness Quota
by cinnamon badge
Summary: [DracoGinny] Draco believes that everyone only has so much happiness in their life.


**Disclaimer: **Harry Potter is not mine.

**A/N:** Written for the 100quills challenge at lj. Prompt #20: belief. Also written for Rainpuddle, because "Locard's Principle" made her cry.

**Happiness Quota**

Draco Malfoy had a philosophy on happiness, and he was convinced for a long time that it was the only truth he could count on in his often confusing, contradictory life. He believed that each person was born with a certain amount of joy predestined in their lives -- a quota, if you will. Some people had small joys throughout their life, some a handful of really great ones interspersed through their personal timeline. Some people used up their happiness quota at a young age and lived the rest of their lives miserable, while some had the reverse. It was the only way he could explain why it seemed that life was unfair, and some people had everything while others suffered.

When he was sixteen, and staring down his wand at Professor Dumbledore atop Hogwarts' tallest tower, he became convinced that he had used up his happiness quota.

As the war progressed, nothing dissuaded him from this idea. He and his mother went into hiding, and all he heard was about his dying friends, his captured father, the losses suffered by the side he was ostensibly on. His childhood had been a happy one, and he had had his own small triumphs against Scarhead and his confederates -- now he was doomed to spend the rest of his life in sorrow.

He remained convinced until -- by chance, circumstance, or fate -- he was injured in the course of what turned out to be the final battle. Draco hadn't been able to stand by and watch anymore, and had joined the Order in exchange for their help in keeping his mother safe. Yaxley had clipped him with a vicious hex and Draco had blacked out, only to wake hours later in the medical tent with Ginny Weasley leaning over him.

"We won," she said simply, and she'd grinned when he released a relieved breath.

That had been the start of his happiness returning, in bits and pieces. He began feeling a delighted little swoop in his stomach whenever Ginny came into sight, and he smiled more easily when she was around. They were nearly inseparable, to everyone else's chagrin, and the fact that Ginny didn't care what they thought thrilled him. She had jump-started his happiness somehow, with her sarcastic smirk so like his own, and her gorgeous red hair, and dry sense of humor.

And Draco's heart had jolted when, on the first anniversary of the day Scarhead took down the Dark Lord, he found himself snogging her at a celebratory party at the Leaky Cauldron.

Evidently, he had been wrong before. He had not run out of happiness in his life, for he felt happier with each passing day he spent with Ginny. His quota must have been greater than he'd first thought, but Draco was now convinced that it would run out soon. Ginny just made him feel sohappy, and so wonderful, that there was no way it would last much longer. As upset as that made him feel, he knew that every minute he spent with Ginny would be worth it.

When they officially became a couple, he remained steady in his belief that it would come to an end soon. He determined to live every second to its fullest, and he knew Ginny couldn't believe he was the same Draco Malfoy that had mercilessly teased her brothers at Hogwarts, giving her such romantic treatment.

When Ginny agreed to marry him two years later, and Draco thought his heart would burst with joy, at the back of his mind was the niggling thought that his happiness quota might be up.

On their wedding day, as Ginny walked down the aisle in her white gown, lovelier than he had ever seen her, Draco thought that finally, he must have reached his predetermined limit. One man alone couldn't possibly deserve to be this ecstatic, not even if he had done a thousand good deeds -- and Draco hadn't done nearly that many.

But it persisted. For their first Christmas together as a married couple, Ginny had given him a small box that, when opened, yielded a pair of tiny white booties. She was pregnant. Draco was over the moon.

The following July, as he held his tiny son Daniel for the very first time, he couldn't believe the sheer joy and love that washed over him. "You're perfect," he whispered, as Daniel blinked up at him through clear blue eyes. "You're beautiful."

Even then he was certain of his teenage philosophy. Two years after Daniel was Elliot, followed by Nicholas three years after that. Draco became madly in love with the sight of his wife pregnant, and even more madly in love with the amazing sons they had made together. But there had to be a catch somewhere, in all of his happiness, and he determinedly kept a sharp eye out for it.

After Nicholas was Sophie, the girl they had wanted for so long. Ginny looked radiant with her sweaty hair and flushed skin, propped up with mounds of pillows in their bed as she held their daughter. "You're going to be Daddy's little girl, aren't you?" she cooed to Sophie, who gave her a bored, patent Malfoy look. Draco and Ginny both laughed.

And she was. Sophie was Draco's princess, and as she grew older the strong bond between them strengthened. Ginny teased him for years when she caught moisture in his eyes on the day that they sent Sophie off for her first year at Hogwarts. Draco hotly denied it, knowing that, at last, his happiness quota had come to an end. His children were all out of the house, away at school, growing up so fast that when Daniel came home with his Apparation license, Draco had to double check that he was actually old enough for it.

The years went inexorably on, marching forward in their ceaseless way, and one by one the children left Hogwarts and started up their own lives, with friends and partners and their own flats. This was the end, or so Draco thought. His heart wrenched as he watched Sophie take all of her possessions with her as she moved into a flat in Hogsmeade. This was the point at which his quota was fulfilled, and the rest of his life would be lived in sadness.

Daniel met his future wife, Cassandra, when they were both twenty-seven, and he proposed to her after they had only been dating eight months. Draco didn't think much of Cassandra at first -- she was stealing his oldest son from him, after all -- but the more he got to know her, the more he realized that Daniel had better taste than he gave him credit for. Cassandra was a wonderful girl, and adored Daniel. They would be very happy together.

As they sat at the reception after the wedding, Ginny humming along to the music as Daniel and Cassandra danced their first dance together, Draco heaved a sigh. "It won't get better than this," he said. "How can we be this happy now and have any left over for later?"

Ginny grinned at him and slid her hand into his. "But Draco," she said, "it's only just begun. Now that Daniel's settled down we've got Elliot to worry about, and Nicholas, and Sophie --"

"Sophie's too young to get married," Draco said immediately.

Ginny laughed. "She is now, but she won't always be. And you know what happens once everyone's happily married off?"

"Miserable, lonely old age," he said, shrugging.

She chuckled again. "No, you prat. Grandchildren. Grandchildren come next."

Draco perked at that. Evidently his wife was more intelligent than he'd given her credit for as well. How could he be anything but thrilled when Daniel presented him with his first grandchild? There was no end in sight to his happiness, and Draco had a feeling it was as boundless as he wanted it to be. He decided then and there that he would stop looking for a catch, because if Ginny said there wasn't one, he was inclined to agree with her.

That quota business was mostly bollocks, anyway.


End file.
